David had a disappointing experience at a local brewpub, and thanks to what he’s learned from reading The Consumerist, he was able to get the management to make things right. He didn’t do it by making a scene, emailing the entire executive board, or holding a protest rally. He just went up to his server and said how things were less than ideal, and then, most importantly, asked for a specific remedy. To his delight, he got more than he asked for. His story, inside…David writes:
BJ’s brewpub opened a few months ago at Tricounty Mall here in Cincinnati. My wife and I had been by to try it, but passed since the wait was 45 minutes. A few months later, we were taking my cousin-in-law out for her birthday, and decided to give it another shot.I called to ask if they had call ahead seating, since we could kill some time rather than waiting. They told me yes, but between the start of the call and the end, they increased the wait time from 25 to 45 minutes. Reasonable, we figured; we’d just kill another half hour before heading over.
We got there and waited 20 minutes beyond the time we were told. It was clearly busy, and they came around with pizza samples, so not unreasonable so far.
Our waiter, Dave, reviewed the specials and took our drink orders right when were seated. Great. But then the problems started.
It took 20 minutes for us to get water and our drinks. Five minutes later, our appetizers came out, but we never saw a sign of Dave, and still hadn’t ordered. I grabbed him from a nearby register, and he quickly came over to take our order.
The food took a reasonable time to come out, and everything tasted wonderful, but the service was limited. In my head, I’d decided that if the manager came by to ask, “Is everything okay?” I would tell him about our dissapointment, but he didn’t.
Without the Consumerist’s influence, we would have sat and bitched, and never come back. Instead, while waiting for the check, I approached Dave. I told him that we were disappointed in the wait for our drinks and order, and asked him to comp one of the appetizers. (I figured that at best they’d take off the $5 one, rather than the $15 one, but at least it would be something.)
Dave apologized, explained that he had been swamped in ringing out tickets, and said he would ask the manager. After telling the manager the story, he comped both appetizers, gave me his card, and asked us for the chance to demonstrate the right level of service on another night. He was glad the food was good, and gave me his card. Dave also came over and asked us to ask for him next time, to make sure we had a good time.
I don’t know if we will go back, but I do know this. If we’d sat there and fumed, we would be done. If I’d raised my concern and they hadn’t responded, we wouldn’t go back. Now? It’s possible.
Thanks, Consumerist, for giving me the confidence to step up, and the knowledge to ask for a specific remedy.
(Photo: Getty)
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@nikkomorocco: Actually I was at Ruby Tuesday’s not too long ago with some friends, and I had eaten a late lunch, so I just ordered a baked potato and a soda while everyone else got a big dinner. When the salads arrived, the manager came out to apologize profusely that my potato would be about 5 minutes behind the meals. I was like “Whatever, no problem, thanks for letting me know.” It arrived just a couple minutes after their main meals, the waiter apologized profusely, and then they comped my potato and everyone’s drinks.
It wasn’t even a meal, I was just having a sort-of mini dinner to keep everyone company and so I wouldn’t have to eat later on, and it totally could have come halfway through the main meal without a problem. I would have been perfectly happy if they’d just let me know it was going to be a couple minutes late so I wasn’t left wondering.
Definitely improved my opinion of Ruby Tuesdays!
As someone who worked in the restaurant business for quite a few years:
It takes a new restaurant awhile to get in their ‘groove’. Even chain restaurants will have some opening jitters that take awhile to iron out. While they may use a GM and Chef from an existing restaurant to open a new one, almost all of the front of the house staff (waiters, bartenders) and back of the house staff (cooks, dishwashers) are typically brand new employees in a brand new build out.
I never go to a restaurant until they’ve been open AT LEAST 6 months because this experience is the likely result, especially if there is a buzz and they’re busy.
@akede2001: Oh my lord! A hungover software engineer? Sheesh, I could accept a hungover surgeon, but I’m pretty sure it was a hungover software engineer that caused the sub-prime meltdown.
In recent months I’ve handled bad dining experiences like OP, it works so much better in nearly every instance.
Unfortunately, I find that some times a calm and confident attitude can really piss people off in certain situations.
My wife is a vegetarian and loves the grilled cheeses at In-N-Out. We got take out and when we got home found a double-double instead. No phone number for the store could be found, so she emailed corporate who promptly sent us coupons for 4 complete meals. We love In-N-Out and it is the only fast food we normally eat, so this made us very happy.
Eh, you’re just lucky and had a good manager.
“Hi, it took too long, comp our appetizers” could easily lead to an awkward, b!tchy confrontation.
And if you get the wrong kind of server….. better expect some spit & god knows what else in your food next time.
“Here’s my card!…ask for me next time (so I can make sure to spit in your food for complaining about me)”.
I’d rather sit & fume, then never come back again than risk added ingedients in my food.
That doesn’t seem unreasonable. It is good that you were able to keep your cool. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but companies do need to earn my business.
I worked in the service industry for quite some time and never actually saw a server do anything to a customer’s food. Never. I mean of course because I never saw it, doesn’t mean it never happened. I’m just saying.
@akede2001:
- Which is why you don’t ever get a tip. And are prime for a lawsuit that would blow you and your carrier in to mending chihuahua legs.
(“You want fries with that?”)
I have interesting cases where the meal I ordered was new to me (a new dish I had not tried before):
once at Olive Garden
once at my favorite sushi restaurant in SF
The OG experience was very unsatisfying, I didn’t like the taste of the spices or the a few of the ingredients…as far as I knew it was made correctly, I just didn’t like it. The waiter (or the manager who came by and saw the mostly uneaten entree) asked me about it and I told him I just didn’t care for it. They took it off the bill after I made it expressly clear it was me not the food…that was cool!
At the sushi restaurant I misunderstood the verbal description of the special and could not finish more than one bite. The waitress asked about it and didn’t even apologize or make an effort to appear that my satisfaction mattered to her at all. She didn’t even say “sorry to hear that”…just a “oh wow….” sort of statement. I wouldn’t have expected them to comp it, as again it’s not their fault, but to appear concerned was all I would have liked. Nope, nothing doing as far as she was concerned.
I wasn’t impressed with the lack of customer consideration there and haven’t really make it my go to sushi place since.
Sometimes it’s about the effort and offer…
do it Gordon Ramsay style…
This is inedible you DONKEY!
Shut it down!
Seriously you people have no idea about restaurants. I have done everything from serving to cooking to management and its obvious just about everyone who has posted here is either cheap or clueless. You not leaving your little tip because something outside the servers control happened is ridiculous. There are at least 5 or 6 people involved with every dish that goes out. One of those people messes up and your going to take money out of the servers pocket? Do you realize that they get paid between 2 and 3 dollars an hour? How about doing the right thing next time and telling a manager so that the cook or whomever it was that messed up can have money taken out of their pocket instead of the server who didn’t do anything wrong. And to all you people who have had legit problems that really should have been taken care of and got brushed off instead, well you can thank people like the above referenced “master of comp”… an executive at a manufacturing company thats too cheap to pay for the food he eats. Just a little food for thought…
This crowd of commenters seem to be, for the most part, unconscionable assholes. Walking out on a meal? ARE YOU SERIOUS?
A server is responsible for their money. You’ve just ruined that servers night. Maybe tomorrow night and the next as well.
It costs a server MONEY TO WAIT ON YOU. For every item you purchase, a percentage is owed to one of the other staff members as tip out. Bussers, bartenders, dishwashers, etc. So when you decide to be a cheapskate because your water is ONLY 1/4 full, or because the kitchen messed up your meal, you’re screwing over someone who’s overworked and underpaid.
Make you feel important? Yes? Big shot?
Never tip below %10 percent, don’t take your feelings of inadequacy out on your server, and you are NOT hot shit just because you can afford to go out to dinner.
Although I personally have never waited tables, I do have family members that have had to endure rude customers and lousy tippers. I’m not condoning lack of service either. Even if the service is shoddy at best, the person gets 15%, since most places do tip pools.
Also, if I have a problem with my meal, I am VERY polite about it, b/c these are people that handle the food you are getting. Has no one ever seen the movie “Waiting”? Things like what happened in that movie DO happen in restaurants.
@akede2001: For me it depends. I’ll only tip low if the problem was clearly the server’s fault. If the kitchen screws up (cooks the wrong item, or whatever) and the server makes it good by comping something, I’ll still tip them well. In fact, I’ll tip them as if I hadn’t gotten the comp. Why should they miss out on part of their tip just because I got a comp?
Heh, I just got my fish & chips comped at lunch today. Gotta agree: if you don’t ask, you won’t get. Fuming won’t help and paying $20 for a sub-standard lunch is a bad deal no matter how well off you are. Just make sure you tell the person giving you the cheque. Often the person taking the dishes and the person handing out bills isn’t the same person.
@smackswell: While I understand your frustration as a server, I don’t agree that a 10% minimum does anybody any good. Do you really want your competition for tips to survive in this industry based on a pre-determined minimum? Should the servers who don’t understand their personal impact on the tip receipts of back kitchen workers keep working just to make 10% and split that minimum amount amongst their co-workers? I doubt it.
Poor servers will get less tips, and will eventually be forced out of the industry by their coworkers and back kitchen support staff.
Good servers don’t need a minimum and will always keep their back kitchen staff happy anyway.
Hence no 10% minimum… stiff your waiter if they don’t provide you with the service they are supposed to provide, it’s survival of the fittest and the kruft needs to be sorted out quickly so everyone else can make more money.
I honestly would be embarrassed to eat at a restaurant with some of the commenters in this thread. Its amazing that the United States is one of the only developed countries where we treat servers and service industry laborers like utter garbage. We pay them poorly, we overwork them, and then we tip them poorly when they can’t keep up with the excessive demands we place on them.
Its sad that there are so many “professional complainers” in the world – who think getting their meals comped is some kind of game. If it wasn’t for them, servers and managers probably wouldn’t be so reluctant to right wrongs in many situations. Think about it – if a restaurant comps a meal for an honest customer, they might get a lot of revenue in repeat business (as the theory goes). If they keep comping meals for scam artists, they’ll get nothing, ever, other than valuable table space being wasted by someone who doesn’t intend to pay.
You have to have reasonable expectations when you eat at restaurants. If you don’t, we will constantly be disappointed with the experience. It seems the expectations of many of the commenters here are way off the mark.
I have been in the restaurant management business for twenty years. I am now considering going into another line of work, because of the beatings I have taken from guests lately. Guests are worse than ever.
I am happy to resolve any guest legitimate guest issue and believe in being pro active, but most try to embarrass and demean folks in the restaurant industry, especially obnoxious folks who demand items comped before you have an oppertunity to apologize. Everyone should wait tables for at least 6 months of their lives. It would make the world a better place.
Remember people, your tips are usually split up amongst the entire crew, busboys, cooks, etc. So, if the entire experience is bad, they will all deservedly suffer financially.
At busy restaurants, try tipping half upfront. Seriously. Throw down half, and be upfront – if they take care of you, you’ll double it. It works.